This disclosure relates generally to mobile security, and specifically, to detecting and preventing data from adversely affecting a mobile communication device or group of mobile communication devices.
Today's mobile communication devices, such as cellular telephones, smartphones, wireless-enabled personal data assistants, tablet PCs, netbooks, and the like, are becoming more common as platforms for various software applications. A mobile communication device user now has more freedom to choose and install different software applications, thereby customizing the mobile communication device experience. However, while there are many positive software applications available on the market, the ability to interact, install, and operate third party software inevitably leaves the mobile communication device susceptible to vulnerabilities, malware, and other harmful software applications. Unlike desktop computers and other less portable computing devices that can install and run antivirus software to protect against harmful software applications, mobile communication devices lack the processing power or resources for effectively running analogous software.
Third party applications have been developed that provide rudimentary scanning functions on a mobile communication device; however, these applications are often device, operating system, or application-specific. As such, a single universal platform-agnostic system for efficiently monitoring, scanning, remedying, and protecting mobile communication devices does not exist. It would be desirable to provide such a system that works on any mobile communication device, that is hardware and software agnostic, and that can be continuously updated to provide constant real-time protection. Moreover, it would be desirable to provide an adaptable system that can act and react to the demands and changes affecting a number of mobile communication devices, thereby providing intelligent malware protection.
One feature common to many mobile communication devices is the fact that they are constantly connected to a network. However, despite this common link, it is difficult to safeguard mobile communication devices fully at the mobile network level, as devices may connect to additional networks and utilize encrypted services, both of which often bypass network level protection. Rather than rely only on the processing and memory resources of each mobile communication device on the network, it would be desirable to provide a system that protects mobile communication devices remotely, providing malware prevention and analysis measures to multiple devices without the overhead of those measures running locally on each device.
One of the issues that make it difficult to protect mobile communication devices from undesirable applications is the many different types of data and applications that are available for such devices. While service providers are able to manage the network traffic in providing applications, there is no current way to effectively monitor the behavior of these applications after they have been installed on a user's mobile communication device. As a further result, it is difficult to identify new, previously unknown malicious applications by their behavior and to track and prevent the spread or dissemination of damaging applications and data once they have been released to the network. It would be desirable to provide a system that can actively monitor a group of mobile communication devices in order gather data about the installation and behavior of applications on mobile communication devices.
Once such a system is in place, it would be desirable to use data and information gained about mobile communication device applications to help users make more educated decisions about the applications they choose to run on their mobile communication devices and to allow administrators and network operators to take preventative measures to further secure both individual devices and the network as a whole. It would be further desirable to develop a way to anonymously collect data about mobile communication device behaviors and activities in order to promote the development of safer mobile applications.